The Conference for the Promotion of MONODZUKURI and Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun Ltd., Japan’s leading business and industry newspaper publisher, announced the winners of “‘CHO’ MONODZUKURI Innovative Parts and Components Award 2009”. The Grand Award was given to the “BUBBLE 90” from Designers Guild, a faucet aerator capable of reducing water usage by up to 95%.

The runner-up awards, “Conference for the Promotion of MONODZUKURI Co-Chair’s Award” and “MONODZUKURI Seimei Bunmei Kiko President’s Award”, were given to one company respectively, and the “Nippon Brand Award” to two companies. Other awards in six different categories were given to a total of 25 companies and Encouragement Award to 14 companies.

The ‘CHO’ MONODZUKURI Innovative Parts and Components Award is a program focusing on parts and components that are the driving forces of MONODZUKURI yet generally receive little public recognition. Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun originally established the program as “MONODZUKURI Innovative Components Award” in 2003, and the Conference for the Promotion of MONODZUKURI founded in September 2007 joined as a co-host for the fifth annual program in 2007. In addition to the original categories of ‘Machinery Components’, ‘Electric & Electronic Components’, and ‘Automotive Components’, three new categories of ‘Environmental Components’, ‘Healthcare & Medical Equipment Components’, and ‘Daily Commodity Components’ were added in the same year. The applications for the new categories are evaluated in collaboration with a nonprofit organization “MONODZUKURI Seimei Bunmei Kiko (MONODZUKURI Life and Cultural Organization)”.